The men of Block 14 were assembled. Ten men had been selected from among them. Ten men, sentenced to die in the camp’s starvation pit because one of their number had escaped. One of the condemned men, thinking of his wife and children, breaks down, asking for mercy from people who will give him none.
Slowly, inconceivably, a fragile form leaves his place among the remaining members of Block 14. His body is wracked with coughing, his uniform’s red triangle with the letter “P” indicates a Polish political prisoner. He makes his way to the head of the assembly, and stands in front of the prison Commandant. Looking the Commandant in the eye, he quietly says, “I want to take the place of the father of a family.”
Silence. Then, the astounded Commandant asks ,“Why?”
“Because I am old and useless. My life is not worth anything.”
The Commandant shrugs, but agrees to the request, and the frail man takes the other’s place in line. As the ten prisoners are marched off to the death house, the Commandant speaks to the man one last time.
“Who are you?”
The reply is brief. “A Catholic priest.”
************
Today is the feast day of St. Maximilian Kolbe, Polish priest, founder of the Knights of the Immaculata, tuberculosis sufferer, and victim of the death camp at Auschwitz.
I have a strong devotion to this saint. The more I read about him, the more I admire him. While thinking about writing something in honor of his feast day, I tried to pin down what it was about him that draws me in.
What I ultimately came up with was his will. This was a man of astounding will, determination, and focus. These God-given gifts could so easily have been used in service of the self; in fact, those very qualities are praised by our culture because of the gains they can secure for the individual. Those with a more global bent may praise the same qualities when put to use for the earthly advancement of humanity as a whole, but few would extol those virtues being put to use in God’s service. After all, the merging of the will of man with the Will of God is a tremendous thing- difficult for the faithful, and distasteful for the non-believer. But St. Maximilian was a man who took that unshakable will and used it to bring glory to God.
He did this paradoxically. There was not one plan he created, not one ambitious dream he had, that he didn’t present to his superiors and submit to their authority. His dreams of building Cities of the Immaculata, of using the technology of the time to reach souls, and of traveling to the far reaches of the earth in the service of Our Lady were all brought to reality through his determination, focus, and persistence, but only after securing permission from those in charge. How many of us today could, knowing that we had clear directions from the Holy Spirit, submit those instructions to our pastors, our confessors, or our spiritual directors, and then wait until permission was given before continuing? The mere concept ranges from inconceivable to troublesome, depending on the individual. Yet it is precisely the concept of the individual and its all too often misguided desires that Kolbe transcended. So firm was his faith that God spoke through His Church that Kolbe found no struggle in submitting his formidable will to the guidance of that same Church.
In the spectacular narrative of his life, it is easy to overlook the quiet, underlying theme of obedience that, I think, gave St. Maximilian Kolbe the strength to accomplish such amazing feats. This saint who has been called a “martyr of charity”, who displayed the “unlimited loving-kindness” that defines that virtue, shows us, children in a time that praises rebellion often simply for rebellion’s sake, that all virtues are made stronger when obedient to God’s, and not our, Will.
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